Every business owner has made poor hiring decisions in his career. With so many competing demands, human resource management is often disregarded by the business owner and mistakes just go with the territory. It is just inevitable that a poor employee will eventually be hired.
Why, however, do many of these poor employees usually arrive in one of the following varieties and what can be done to avoid them hiring in the future? First, let’s have a look at the losers and then we can appreciate the solution.
The Communicator
Sounds good, right? I am not referring to that spectacular employee who keeps everyone abreast of current project status or new procedures. Instead, I am talking about the social communicator who never leaves his smart device in his pocket. His head is always buried in the device and his hands a blur of keystrokes. Customers on the sales floor go unnoticed or backroom tasks are left incomplete or undone. Fortunately, he can tell you the latest news about Kim Kardashian and her engagement ring.
The Wanderer
This employee can never seem to find any work to do. If not readily visible, he can usually be found in the break room or the rest room. He refuses to take direction and will always migrate to the least taxing task. Even worse, he does not just waste his own time but typically gathers two or three otherwise valuable employees and distracts them from their tasks as well.
The Rules Lawyer
If company policy is that seven minutes is officially late, then this employee arrives exactly six minutes late. He has the inordinate ability to remain just within compliance. In addition, He can argue incessantly about the inadequacy of established company procedures. His solutions are to reinvent the wheel or institute changes so that your company does things like they did at his last employer. An added benefit is that this employee is never wrong.
The Clock Watcher
Attendance and timeliness, or the lack thereof, is this employee’s forte. He “forgets” to punch out for breaks and will regularly leave 15 minutes early to take care of some company errand like mailing a letter. If he’s salaried, just call him Lester Moore for he works forty hours; no less, no more. He is most usually sick on Mondays, Fridays or Super Bowl Sunday.
The Victim
If he only had the right equipment or training or time or some other thing and the job would get done. But he doesn’t and it won’t. You get the idea. Nothing is satisfactory about the equipment or the office to this employee. Two days after arriving he will discover that his desk, computer, stapler or whatever does not suit his purposes and efficiency is going to suffer. He is completely unwilling or unable to adapt. If you are unlucky enough to hire one of these types, add babysitting to your job responsibilities.
The Solution
Human resource management is a delicate and time consuming process. As your business grows, it becomes ever more important to dedicate adequate resources to the recruiting, hiring and training of exceptional employees. It may seem like an expensive proposition to acquire a human resource management system but the costs will be repaid in the acquisition of just one or two exceptional employees. In addition, the savings in time and aggravation also won’t hurt if you avoid hiring a few of the above losers.
